My friends and I have all thought about doing this. We still think about doing this a lot but we're afraid of a dispute coming up and ruining our friendship. We want to do it but we don't want to risk our group friendship.
I have done this twice, once ages 24-31 and once 31-34. Both ended up being financially advantageous, especially the first time around when few of my peers were buying houses. Both times it ended up being complicated. It didn't ruin friendships or result in bad feelings between us, but it wasn't easy.
The first time though I wanted to move out before the other owner wanted to sell, so he stayed another 2 or 3 years and I was just a silent landlord, which was okay but made it impossible for me to get another mortgage or even a new credit card. In the end he got married and wanted to sell. This was in the DC area where the market was pretty much always hot, so selling the property was easy. Anywhere else it could have been more complicated.
The second time my friendship deteriorated over the course of the time I lived there because of external circumstances, in the end the other owner agreed to refinance and buy me out, and there was a little tension during the process but I think we both walked away satisfied with the outcome. One of the reasons our friendship deteriorated was because as we grew into adulthood, my friend chose a career in the service industry, and I chose a career as a teacher, and it sucked living with someone who had the opposite schedule. Over time as we settled into our lives, our social schedules diverged as well, which was definitely detrimental to our relationship.
I would actually recommend it either to people who are young and early in their adulthood, so that they have lots of flexibility and don't mind the challenges and inconveniences that it entails, or to people who are well settled in adulthood who already have similar lifestyles, employment situations, work schedules, etc. to minimize friction.
I lived with my best friend whom I’ve known forever and it drove us apart. Weirdly, we still kee in touch and are on friendlier terms now than we were when living together.
Doing it for 30 years sounds like my personal nightmare.
Yeah, I wouldn’t ever do it. Living with friends was fun for a while, but at the end of the day I was very happy to be able to just move out after about two and a half years and just sign my spot on the lease off to somebody else.
I’m part of a group trying to do something similar (buying an apartment building and then all living together there). From our early research, I think the biggest thing I can say is that you need systems in place at the beginning for resolving conflicts and ending things. (Don’t wait until you have an issue). Also, if people decide to go their own way, that’s okay as long as you had a good experience while living together.
I looked into this a few years ago (in Australia) and the issue was that we were all individually liable. If all the 'friends' turn into deadbeats, become long-term unemployed, or die - you pay 100% yourself or lapse on the mortgage and get the blame.
I could be remembering incorrectly here, but from memory this meant that in effect a mortgage would not be approved if each individual could not pay 100% alone. This limits the benefit of such an arrangement from "can't afford" to "prefer not to pay it all by myself".
The first time though I wanted to move out before the other owner wanted to sell, so he stayed another 2 or 3 years and I was just a silent landlord, which was okay but made it impossible for me to get another mortgage or even a new credit card. In the end he got married and wanted to sell. This was in the DC area where the market was pretty much always hot, so selling the property was easy. Anywhere else it could have been more complicated.
The second time my friendship deteriorated over the course of the time I lived there because of external circumstances, in the end the other owner agreed to refinance and buy me out, and there was a little tension during the process but I think we both walked away satisfied with the outcome. One of the reasons our friendship deteriorated was because as we grew into adulthood, my friend chose a career in the service industry, and I chose a career as a teacher, and it sucked living with someone who had the opposite schedule. Over time as we settled into our lives, our social schedules diverged as well, which was definitely detrimental to our relationship.
I would actually recommend it either to people who are young and early in their adulthood, so that they have lots of flexibility and don't mind the challenges and inconveniences that it entails, or to people who are well settled in adulthood who already have similar lifestyles, employment situations, work schedules, etc. to minimize friction.